Read the Bible in a Year

Each day, we'll post passages so that you can read the Bible in one year. This is part of The Colossians 13:16 Project, sponsored by Cove Presbyterian Church, 3404 Main Street, Weirton, West Virginia. You're invited to worship with us Sundays, at 11:00 a.m. or Saturdays, at 6:30 p.m. You may also want to consider joining one our adult Bible Studies: Thursdays at 12:00 noon and Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. We also have a full range of programs for children. If you want more information about the church, check out the other blogs. And please feel free to leave any comments.

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Monday, December 5, 2016

Bible Readings for December 5, 2016

Today, our passages are Hosea 1:1–3:5; 1 John 5:1-21; Psalm 124:1-8; and Proverbs
29:5-8. The readings
are from The
Message by Eugene H.
Peterson. If you missed
a day, you can find all the readings at our blog, The Bible in a
Year. If you find these
readings helpful, please consider sending an offering directly to Cove
Presbyterian Church, 3404 Main Street, Weirton, West Virginia or through
PayPal by using the link below.

Hosea 1-3:5 (The
Message)

Hosea 1

1 This is God's
Message to Hosea son of Beeri. It came to him during the royal reigns of Judah's
kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This was also the time that Jeroboam
son of Joash was king over Israel. This Whole Country Has Become a
Whorehouse
2 The
first time God spoke to Hosea he said:
"Find a whore and marry her. Make this
whore the mother of your children.And here's why: This whole country
has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, God."
3 Hosea
did it. He picked Gomer daughter of Diblaim. She got pregnant and gave him a
son.
4-5
Then God told him:
"Name him Jezreel. It won't be long now before
I'll make the people of Israel pay for the massacre at Jezreel.
I'm calling it quits on the kingdom of Israel.Payday is coming! I'm
going to chop Israel's bows and arrows into kindling in the valley of
Jezreel."
6-7
Gomer got pregnant again. This time she had a daughter. God told Hosea:
"Name this one No-Mercy. I'm fed up with
Israel. I've run out of mercy. There's no more forgiveness.Judah's
another story. I'll continue having mercy on them. I'll save them. It
will be their God who saves them,Not their armaments and armies, not
their horsepower and manpower."
8-9
After Gomer had weaned No-Mercy, she got pregnant yet again and had a son. God
said:
"Name him Nobody. You've become nobodies to
me, and I, God, am a nobody to you.
10-11
"But down the road the population of Israel is going to explode past counting,
like sand on the ocean beaches. In the very place where they were once named
Nobody, they will be named God's Somebody. Everybody in Judah and everybody in
Israel will be assembled as one people. They'll choose a single leader. There'll
be no stopping them—a great day in Jezreel!"

Hosea 2

1 "Rename your
brothers 'God's Somebody.'
Rename your sisters 'All Mercy.' Wild
Weekends and Unholy Holidays
2-13
"Haul your mother into court. Accuse her! She's no longer my wife.
I'm no longer her husband.Tell her to quit dressing like a whore,
displaying her breasts for sale.If she refuses, I'll rip off her
clothes and expose her, naked as a newborn.I'll turn her skin into
dried-out leather, her body into a badlands landscape, a rack of
bones in the desert.I'll have nothing to do with her children, born
one and all in a whorehouse.Face it: Your mother's been a whore,
bringing bastard children into the world.She said, 'I'm off to see my
lovers! They'll wine and dine me,Dress and caress me, perfume
and adorn me!'But I'll fix her: I'll dump her in a field of thistles,
then lose her in a dead-end alley.She'll go on the hunt for her
lovers but not bring down a single one.She'll look high and low
but won't find a one. Then she'll say,'I'm going back to my husband,
the one I started out with. That was a better life by far than this
one.'She didn't know that it was I all along who wined and dined and
adorned her,That I was the one who dressed her up in the big-city
fashions and jewelry that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.I'm about to
bring her up short: No more wining and dining! Silk lingerie and gowns
are a thing of the past.I'll expose her genitals to the public. All
her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.Party time is over. I'm
calling a halt to the whole business, her wild weekends and unholy
holidays.I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains,
of which she bragged, 'Whoring paid for all this!'They will soon be
dumping grounds for garbage, feeding grounds for stray dogs and
cats.I'll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion—
all that sensuous Baal worshipAnd all the promiscuous sex that went
with it, stalking her lovers, dressed to kill,And not a thought for
me." God's Message!

To Start All Over Again

14-15 "And now,
here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to start all over again.I'm
taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and
I'll court her.I'll give her bouquets of roses. I'll turn Heartbreak
Valley into Acres of Hope.She'll respond like she did as a young girl,
those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.
16-20
"At that time"—this is God's Message still— "you'll address me, 'Dear
husband!'Never again will you address me, 'My slave-master!'I'll
wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names,
not so much as a whisper of those names again.At the same time I'll
make a peace treaty between you and wild animals and birds and
reptiles,And get rid of all weapons of war. Think of it! Safe from
beasts and bullies!And then I'll marry you for good—forever! I'll
marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.Yes, I'll marry you and
neither leave you nor let you go. You'll know me, God, for who I really
am.
21-23
"On the very same day, I'll answer"—this is God's Message— "I'll answer
the sky, sky will answer earth,Earth will answer grain and wine and olive
oil, and they'll all answer Jezreel.I'll plant her in the good earth.
I'll have mercy on No-Mercy.I'll say to Nobody, 'You're my dear
Somebody,' and he'll say 'You're my God!'"

Hosea 3

In Time They'll Come Back

1 Then God
ordered me, "Start all over: Love your wife again, your wife who's in bed with
her latest boyfriend, your cheating wife.Love her the way I, God, love the
Israelite people, even as they flirt and party with every god that takes
their fancy."
2-3I
did it. I paid good money to get her back. It cost me the price of a
slave.Then I told her, "From now on you're living with me. No more
whoring, no more sleeping around. You're living with me and I'm living
with you."
4-5 The
people of Israel are going to live a long time stripped of security and
protection,without religion and comfort, godless and
prayerless.But in time they'll come back, these Israelites, come back
looking for their God and their David-King.They'll come back chastened to
reverence before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story
of his love.

1 John 5:1-21 (The
Message)

1 John 5

1-3Every person
who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love
the One who conceives the child, we'll surely love the child who was conceived.
The reality test on whether or not we love God's children is this: Do we love
God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his
commandments and they are not at all troublesome.

The Power That Brings the World to Its
Knees

4-5Every God-begotten person conquers the world's ways. The
conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who
wins out over the world's ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son
of God.
6-8Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving
birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal
birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is
confirming the truth, the reality of God's presence at Jesus' baptism and
crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us. A triple testimony: the
Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.
9-10If
we take human testimony at face value, how much more should we be reassured when
God gives testimony as he does here, testifying concerning his Son. Whoever
believes in the Son of God inwardly confirms God's testimony. Whoever refuses to
believe in effect calls God a liar, refusing to believe God's own testimony
regarding his Son.
11-12This is the testimony in essence: God gave us eternal
life; the life is in his Son. So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects
the Son, rejects life.

The Reality, Not the Illusion

13-15My purpose
in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God's Son will know beyond
the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the
illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking
according to his will, sure that he's listening. And if we're confident that
he's listening, we know that what we've asked for is as good as ours.
16-17For instance, if we see a Christian believer sinning
(clearly I'm not talking about those who make a practice of sin in a way that is
"fatal," leading to eternal death), we ask for God's help and he gladly gives
it, gives life to the sinner whose sin is not fatal. There is such a thing as a
fatal sin, and I'm not urging you to pray about that. Everything we do wrong is
sin, but not all sin is fatal.
18-21We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice
of sin—fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One
can't lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it's only the
people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One. And we know that
the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God—what a
gift!—and we are living in the Truth itself, in God's Son, Jesus Christ. This
Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all
clever facsimiles.

Psalm 124:1-8 (The
Message)

Psalm 124

A Pilgrim Song of David

1-5 If God hadn't been for us —all together
now, Israel, sing out!— If God hadn't been for us when
everyone went against us, We would have been swallowed alive by
their violent anger, Swept away by the flood of rage, drowned
in the torrent; We would have lost our lives in the wild,
raging water.

6 Oh, blessed
be God! He didn't go off
and leave us. He didn't abandon us defenseless, helpless as a
rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.

7 We've flown free from their fangs, free of
their traps, free as a bird. Their grip is broken; we're free
as a bird in flight.

8God's strong name is our help,
the same God who made
heaven and earth.

Proverbs 29:5-8 (The
Message)

5 A flattering neighbor is up to no good; he's
probably planning to take advantage of you.

6 Evil people fall into their own traps; good people
run the other way, glad to escape.

7 The good-hearted understand what it's like to be poor;
the hardhearted haven't the faintest idea.

8 A gang of cynics can upset a whole city; a group
of sages can calm everyone down.

Verse of the
Day“[Jesus Is the Good Shepherd]Jesus said: I tell
you for certain that I am the gate for the sheep. I am the gate. All who come in
through me will be saved. Through me they will come and go and find pasture. A
thief comes only to rob, kill, and destroy. I came so that everyone would have
life, and have it in its fullest.” - John 10:7, 9-10

German theoretical physicist and one of the key
pioneers of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg
wrote, “There is a fundamental error in separating the parts from the whole, the
mistake of atomizing what should not be atomized. Unity and complementarity
constitute reality.”